Conference thebay::joyoflex

313.0. "The History of the World" by PSTJTT::TABER (Who hates vice hates man) Fri Jan 30 1987 10:48

The following is too priceless not to be in this file.  I have removed 
the forwarding headers to protect the innocent.

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The World According To Student Bloopers  -- By  Richard Lederer
 
One of the fringe benefits of being an English or history teacher is receiving 
the occasional jewel of a student blooper in an essay.  I have pasted together 
the following "history" of the world (in two parts) from certifiably genuine 
student bloopers collected by teachers throughout the United States, from 
eighth grade through college freshman level.  Read carefully, and you will 
learn a lot.
 
	The inhabitants of Ancient Egypt were called mummies.  They lived in 
the Sarah Dessert and traveled by Camelot.  The climate of the Sarah is such 
that the inhabitants have to live elsewhere, so certain areas of the dessert 
are cultivated by irritation.
 
	The Pyramids are a range of mountains between France and Spain.  The 
Egyptians built the Pyramids in the shape of a huge triangular cube.
 
	The Bible is full of interesting caricatures.  In the first book of 
the Bible, Guinesses, Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree.  One of 
their children, Cain, once asked, "Am I my brother's son?"
 
	God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac on Mount Montezuma.  Jacob, son 
of Isaac, stole his brother's birthmark.  Jacob was a patriarch who brought up 
his 12 sons to be patriarchs, but they did not take to it.  One of Jacob's 
sons, Joseph, gave refuse to the Israelites.
 
	Pharaoh forced the Hebrew slaves to make bread without straw.  Moses 
led them to the Red Sea where they made unleavened bread, which is bread made 
without any ingredients.  Afterward, Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the 
10 commandments.
 
	David was a Hebrew king skilled in playing the liar.  He fought with 
the Philatelists, a race of people who lived in Biblical times.  Solomn, one 
of David's sons, had 500 wives and 500 porcupines.
 
	Without the Greeks, we wouldn't have history.  The Greeks invented 
three kinds of columns -- Corinthian, Doric, and Ironic.  They also had myths. 
A myth is a female moth.
 
	One myth says that the mother of Achilles dipped him in the river 
Stynx until he became intollerable.  Achilles appears in "The Iliad," by Homer. 
Homer also wrote "The Oddity," in which Penelope was the last hardship that 
Ulysses endured on his journey.  Actually, Homer was not written by Homer but 
by another man of the that name.
 
	Socrates was another famous Greek teacher who went around giving 
people advice.  They killed him.  Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock.
 
	Life in ancient Greece reeked with Joy.  In the Olympic Games, Greeks 
ran races, jumped hurled the bicuits and threw the java.  The reward to the 
victor was a coral wreath.
 
	The government of Athens was democratic because people took the law 
into their own hands.  There were no wars in Greece, as the mountains were so 
high that they couldn't climb over to see what their neighbors were doing.  
When they fought with the Persians, the Greeks were outnumbered because the 
Persians had more men.
 
	Eventually, the Ramons conquered the Geeks.  History calls people 
Romans because they never stayed in one place for very long.  At Roman 
banquets, the guests wore garlics in their hair.
 
	Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul.  The 
Ides of March murdered him because they thought he was going to be made king.  
Nero was a cruel tyranny who would torture his poor subjects by playing the 
fiddle to them.
 
	The came the Middle Ages.  King Alfred conquered the Dames, King 
Arthur lived in the Age of Shivery, King Harold mustarded his troops before 
the Battle of Hastings, Joan of Arc was cannonized by Bernard Shaw and victims 
of the Black Death grew boobs on their necks.  Finally, Magna Carta provided 
that no free man should be hanged twice for the same offense.
 
	In midevil times most of the people were alliterate.  The greatest 
writer of the time was Chaucer, who wrote many poems and verses and also wrote 
literature.  Another tale tells of William Tell, who shot an arrow through an 
apple while standing on his son's head.
 
	The Renaissance was an age in which more individuals felt the value of 
their human being.  Martin Luther was nailed to the church door at Wittenberg 
for selling papal indulgences.  He died a horrible death being excommunicated 
by a bull.  It was the painter Donatello's interest in the female nude that 
made him the father of the Renaissance.
 
	It was an age of great inventions and discoveries.  Gutenberg invented 
the Bible.  Sir Walter Raleigh was a historical figure because he invented 
cigarettes.  Another important invention was the circulation of blood.  Sir 
Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100-foot clipper.
 
	The government of England was a limited mockery.  Henry VIII found 
walking difficult because he had an abbess on his knee.  Queen Elizabeth was 
the "Virgin Queen." As a queen she was a success.  When Elizabeth exposed 
herself before her troops, they all shouted, "hurrah!"  Then her navy went out 
and defeated the Spanish Armadillo.
 
	The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespear.  
Shakespear never made much money and is famous only because of his plays.  He 
lived at Windsor with his merry wives, writing tragedies, comedies and errors. 
In one of Shakespear's famous plays, Hamlet rations out his situation by 
relieving himself in a long soliloquy.  In another, Lady Macbeth tries to 
convince Macbeth to kill the King by attacking his manhood.  Romeo and Juliet 
are an example of a heroic couplet.
 
	Writing at the same time as Shakespear was Miguel Cervantes.  He wrote 
"Donkey Hote."  The next great author was John Milton.  Milton wrote "Paradise 
Lost."  Then his wife died and he wrote "Paradise Regained."

    	What I find frightfully amusing is that you can't tell who are
    the eighth graders and who are the college freshmen!
    
    	Larry